The only password I could remember was the one for my screen name Velveeeta. These are the screen names on my buddy list circa 1996 through 2002 or so. It was so fun to see all of these names again.. I wonder where most of these people are now.

Yesterday I realized that it was too long since I tweeted. I’m almost 34 years old you know, and I just don’t get in tweets like I used to. So I went to the familiar world of Twitter and started to type my message. I didn’t even read the pink notification at the top until I was done typing my sentence. (I thought it was a notice to check out Bruno Mars or something equally as cool.)

“That’s weird,” I thought, and tried to change my password since it was possible someone finally succeeded into getting into my account. And that wouldn’t be surprising because people (I mean, teenagers) have asked me to hand over my username to them for years now because their name is Kayla too and they see that I don’t tweet very often.

I figured out that I couldn’t change anything about my account so I emailed support. Apparently when you email about account suspension they reply pretty quickly. In the past I have asked a few times if they can change my join date to the correct year and they either say they can’t do it or just don’t reply. I emailed last night asking what happened, mentioned that I’ve had the account since 2007, etc. What I received back this morning (fast!) was a cold, short email that said:

Hello,

It has come to our attention that your Twitter account is in violation of the Twitter Rules, specifically the policy on Impersonation: http://support.twitter.com/entries/18366-impersonation-policy.

Impersonation is pretending to be another entity in order to deceive, and is strictly prohibited. This account has been suspended and will not be restored.

Thanks,

Twitter

That was completely mind boggling to me. I rarely use Twitter and I am definitely not impersonating anyone. Completely bizarre! I replied with:

Hi,
I have no idea what you mean. I have had this account forever, as I said since 2007. At first my account was username ‘memory’ and someone in support changed it for me back in 2007 or 2008 (when support actually talked to people on a personal level). Not sure if you can somehow see that in any history for the account. I don’t use the account as often as I used to. My name is Kayla Selans and this is my Facebook profile http://facebook.com/kaylaselans and this is my website http://lovelightlens.com

Users have often messaged me asking me if they can have my account because their name is Kayla, but that is the only activity I have ever had to deal with. I had not used my account in a few weeks, logged in, and saw the suspended message. Please let me know what evidence you have because this is completely news to me. The fact that it happened and that I have this cold message with no proof of anything is even worse.

When I started receiving products for free from random Amazon sellers to give honest reviews, I was excited – like anyone would be. Some of the things I’ve received for free include a selfie stick, baby socks, coconut oil, purses and cayenne pepper powder. This is all and well. But when I see that Amazon has selected a health product as “Amazon’s Choice” and that product has mostly reviews which were written by people who received the supplements for free, that makes me worry. Did Amazon make it a choice product because it has so many reviews and is doing well? How can anyone trust a product with so many reviews when the product was given for free.

The rant rocket is launching.

People usually lean toward giving a more positive review when they are normally receiving free thngs every week from Amazon sellers. I haven’t read many one star reviews for a free product. One star reviews happen when someone is genuinely upset about a product AND the fact they lost money. When you take the money out of the picture, something that didn’t help a person at all ends up getting three stars just because of the positive situation of receiving something for free in the first place.

I don’t care that Amazon allows these reviews for selfie sticks or herbs. But to allow a lot of smoke and mirrors for things like vitamins, medicines and supplements that people are putting INSIDE their bodies? Amazon, you really need to adjust your priorities here. It’s bad enough there’s so many random companies selling this stuff that no one has ever heard of. I only want to see real reviews, from people who purposely wanted a certain type of supplement, etc. and really tried it for months.

I’m about to launch a tiny rant rocket.
You see, I’m a very low key customer for WeddingWire. I never ask them for anything or need anything. My sole job is to get client reviews on their website since it ranks high in Google (unfortunately for all wedding vendors in the US of A). I have 21 reviews right now, which is a pretty impressive number considering it can be very, very hard to get clients to write reviews. It’s even hard for me to take time to write reviews sometimes! I get it. So with all of that hard work under my belt, and under the floral sashes of my clients, WeddingWire decides to send me the Most Repulsive Business Email of the Year. This is my review of how unstable and unpredictable they can be from a wedding photographer’s standpoint.

A few months ago my card stopped working but only for them and not for any other website or service I use. There is no way to update the card online and I personally love to do everything online. So that is the first problem with them. Their site is outdated in every way possible, technically and aesthetically, and they don’t have billing options for us which should be a core feature. Eventually they got my card sorted out after I asked them to run it again and the month was paid.

So for some reason it happened again for July. This month happens to be the last month of my package. So they emailed me about it and called, and I figured it will sort itself out again when they run it again. Before I could even get back to them to try again, they sent me an email saying that my account is suspended. I have put the most important line of this email in bold:

This email is to notify you that your WeddingWire account is currently in suspension due to nonpayment in the amount of of $66.67 . You have 5 business days to resolve or your account will proceed to termination.

If your account proceeds to termination, you will no longer be able to login and your Weddingwire advertising agreement will be forfeited due to nonpayment. Should you wish to reinstate your account in the future, you must resolve the balance on your account in full and fulfill a new 12-month advertising agreement. In addition, you are no longer eligible for any cancellation policy as outlined in the WeddingWire Terms of Purchase.

I am sure you notice the issue here. And really, can you believe that? I’m in here, the happy world of weddings and they say something like that – over 70 bucks? They are telling someone who has used the site for years, with 21 awesome reviews, who worked hard, who cares about their account being there, to sign up for another year to get the account access back? What year is this, 2006? Who does that kind of thing anymore?

On top of this, there’s the fact that I would hardly get any leads. Then one day I mentioned that I might upgrade or change my account. And I suddenly got a lead everyday for about five days, they just kept popping up. Then when I didn’t take any action, they stopped.

It’s almost as if they can turn leads on or off for any user at will depending on the monetary value of the customer, so that is probably the most EXQUISITE and tweaked part of their system!

If you are using WeddingWire, you probably have already experienced something shady but you just put up with it. And if you are searching Google for reviews or other cases of shady, you’ve found one.

So the end of the story for now is that I received the email around 7 AM on a Thursday, replied an hour later. No reply all day. No reply all day on Friday. So I’m left without access to my account all weekend.

Did you know that insurance companies like MetLife still think it’s okay to generate leads for new insurance customers through spam? I’ve had enough of just ignoring these types of emails that land in my junk mail folder on Gmail. Having my Gmail account since 2004, it’s really been around the block. And now, by looking at the fruitfulness of my spam folder, it’s very clear which companies hire the scum of the Internet to send out random spam which attempt to entice users to click the links inside. These days, emails are not just about random people looking for things I can’t even mention here. Many well known companies have shady employees without any moral direction, who are deliberately making a mess of their reputation. My first case here is Liberty Mutual. An insurance company trying to gain leads in deceitful ways, as usual.

I have a lot to say but we’re about to make a run to Chipotle and that is more important to me at the moment. I’ll be 25 weeks tomorrow and feeling pretty tired as usual, but today was actually kind of normal! I actually dried and straightened my hair.

Also today was Day 2 of potty training Liam. His #2 didn’t make it into the toilet today but he did pee once in it. The potty is slowly becoming his friend. I showed Liam his new underwear too so hopefully we will be in those soon, at least during the day. This is my number one goal right now to make sure he is potty trained before baby comes. It even feels weird to say trained, as if he is an animal. I just want him to use the potty. 😉Finally, last night was his third or maybe fourth night in his big boy bed. He has been so wonderful and loves the bed. It has been amazing to have him walk into our room in the morning and surprise us with a big “Hiiiii!” Things are happening!

I became a member of Amazon Prime in 2005, just months after getting an Amazon credit card from Chase. It started as a mostly harmless way to cure the first world problem of not wanting to wait a week for a package. That taste of two-day shipping luxury quickly turned into a total dependency. Becoming a first time parent really accelerated my use of Amazon Prime. In those first few months, I figured out that joining Amazon Mom and getting a subscription for diapers was the best thing since two hours of non-interrupted sleep. The companion to my diaper subscription soon became the Bounty paper towel subscription. Then the Charmin Basic toilet paper subscription. Enter Quaker Granola Bars on the scene, baby wipes, baby food pouches and more. Sometimes my Amazon boxes are so big, my son uses them to play inside of and we have complete Prime Cities made with multiple boxes. I even started getting dog food delivered so I can save the trip to the pet store and carrying the huge bag across the parking lot. (I said this was first world.)

The amount of money I have saved is phenomenal. Purchasing a big case of just about anything from Amazon is such a smart move. My son was an Enfamil Gentle-ease-er and if I had purchased it one tub at a time, or even the two-packs, I would have wasted so much money. In the end I did waste some money because the subscription didn’t come soon enough and I had to run out to the store a few times, but that was my fault, not Amazon’s.

When I do run out to go shopping at the local grocery store, Target or any other establishments, my visits are more enjoyable. There’s no pressure that this is my chance to get everything. They’re also faster and less of a “big deal” because shopping with children can be stressful and unpredictable. Knowing I don’t have to get a huge package of towels or diapers makes things so much nicer. I can focus on the food or other things I need.

The UPS delivery drivers must have my house in their “Favorites” list on their GPS. I might as well open our house to be a location for Amazon Locker.

Amazon, why are you so amazing? Sadly, you are killing so much local business. But you have made my life so much better. How am I to choose the right thing to do? The answer is, I just can’t think about it. I want my boxes. I have my sanity and I collect more time at home with my little one.

If you are trying to update your categories and slugs, and the error “Item Not Updated” comes up, there is only one reason why. You are trying to give a category slug the same exact title and format as one of your existing post tags. Category slugs cannot be the phrase as any of your tags for posts. For example, if you have a tag called,

tech-tips-microsoft

You’ll need to make a category slug like this instead,

microsoft-tech-tips

Just change your words around a bit and you’ll get around the mysterious “Item Not Updated” error on WordPress with ease. I am thinking they will add a note along with that error some day which actually explains why it’s denying your changes.